


Together in Nowhere

by bakerstreetchick22



Category: ST - Fandom, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst and Fluff and Smut, F/M, Fluff and Smut, It's modern day, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, Rey is a cutie, Reylo - Freeform, They're on Earth, also, american gothic vibes, angsty kylo, mush??, or Ben Solo needs a hug, pretty sweet, reylo smut, she wants to explore, there cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 19:07:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17391986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bakerstreetchick22/pseuds/bakerstreetchick22
Summary: Ben is taking a road trip via motorcycle across the midwest to run away from everything. He is shook up, angsty, and more than a little bit in need of help. He meets Rey in a small town in the middle of nowhere. He decides to stick around and see where the wind will take them.





	Together in Nowhere

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!! I hope ya'll like this little passion project I'm working on. I just really had an itch to write something softer and more intimate. Also, the setting and the general subject matter of the midwest is something I have really wanted to as I love the American Gothic aesthetic. 
> 
> So yeh- Ben- In this story I feel like after he finished college he came back home and felt really lost and not sure of really anything- like he had gone to school to make Han and Leia proud- but when he came home and found that they were separating it made him wonder what had been the point of living his life for his parents- if they were willing to give up on him? Yeah, so that is just the background for the angsty self-discovery escapist road trip he is on.

The Midwest is a surreal, desolate place. A bland dreamscape, that is only able to load textures half-way before giving up. Flat is the bluntest and the most complete way to describe it. Nothing but voiceless expanses of fields lay against the horizon, and most certainly, nothing lay beyond the horizon but more of the same. The world there is open, maddeningly open. You’re free to drive for hours there, but you’ll get exhausted trying to reach the edge of the map. In the midst of all that flat, you can feel forgotten. Perhaps, that is the appeal of the plains. Perhaps, that is why there are so many billboards screaming about the big man in the sky out there. 

“HELL IS REAL!” 

“HE IS COMING!” 

“DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU’LL GO?”

Probably to the only store in town. Ben thought as he tore past the billboard. 

Strange feelings were all about. It was daybreak, halfway between Kansas City and Topeka. He had been driving all night. He didn’t know where exactly he was going, but he could sense reality trying to press through the cracks in his mind- That meant it was time to stop off at another one of those asphalt oases- and quick. Right now was no time for reality. 

Roaring onwards on his bike he saw the sign for the next exit forming in the distance. It was providence.  
In five miles there was pull off- importantly a pull off with a bar. Leaning forward, he sped up to an ungodly speed. Driving like mad across a straight line of highway was as free as it got- unless there were some buzz-cut goose steppers about- camped out in some podunk speed trap. Every so often he scanned up the sides of the road suspiciously. Anytime he thought about the incident in Oklahoma he got a runny feeling inside. While it had definitely not been the worst night in his life, sharing a cell overnight with a bunch of drunk 60’s year olds on their way back from the casinos was definitely a torment and half. Local law was to be avoided at all times. Jackasses. 

In no time at all- and also not soon enough- he was upon the exit. Screeching, he pulled in. An odd feeling of Deja vu settled over him. He had seen this one street town before. Certainly, he had been here before, only two hundred or so miles ago. There was a bar, a small gas-station-store-diner, a grocers, and an off-brand motel. He hadn’t intended on sleeping- it was more of a power through it all mood that he had been feeling- but he thought he’d keep the motel in mind just in case he went a little too hard. Keeping at equilibrium was a bit of a trick- just enough of alcohol to keep detached but not enough to drift away to the floor. It seemed he should have mastered it by now. His father certainly had mastered it. 

He grimaced. It was terribly reckless to start thinking about his father now. That was one of the golden rules- the defining purpose of this trip- to not think about anything he didn’t want to think about. His father definitely fell smack into that category. Often he had cursed- as he was cursing now- whatever had compelled him to attach his father’s dice to his keys. 

His motor lurched to a stop, somewhere between two parking spaces, but he wasn’t particularly concerned as there more pressing issues. Flinging his long legs off, he had another sharp encounter with reality, riding for five hours straight was a painful affair. Yes, all this nastiness needed to be dealt with and in the most expedient way possible. Pulling himself together, he cleaned off his jacket and smoothed back his hair and made his way up to the bar. He squinted as he approached the door. There was a loud- horrendous- rude sign on it that dangled from a tack. 

“CLOSED”

Of all the cruel jokes- It was six in the morning. Six in the goddamned morning. The universe had decided. It was to be eggs and bacon- or whatever the common fair was- not fireball and Budweiser. Food… the idea did not sit well with him but he knew he needed something less he ended up half mad and delirious in the motel in a few hours. Going up and staying up was hard, but coming down, flat down on nothing was harder. 

With a delinquent reluctantness, he slank across the parking lot to the small diner that was attached to the gas station. The place’s faded chicken mascot stared him down with its beady cartoon eyes from the rooftop billboard- jeering him with the definite possibility that he would be hurling said chicken into the sidewalk. Resigning himself, he blundered on through the door. The bell overhead jingled and everyone compulsively looked at him. The chicken was almost definitely not going to be worth the effort.

“Hello, Mister,” Said some lady in one of those paper hats, “You want a table?” 

He made a sound- it wasn’t a yes- but it conveyed enough meaning for him to be ushered to a small table in the corner. A menu, a place setting wrapped up in a paper napkin, and some assorted condiments were dealt out to him. He stared at the menu, nothing much on it spoke to him. He stared at it longer, as if his true problem was sheer illiteracy instead of disinterest. 

“Having trouble deciding?” 

He looked up. A different lady in a paper hat had come up to the table- but the paper hat was altogether where the similarity ended. She wasn’t a knock your socks off type- but she was altogether too much for this place and time. He stared at her too. 

“You-” He swallowed, the wretched dryness in his mouth becoming ten times worse as he looked at her. “You have any suggestions?” 

There he had managed to say it, hopefully, the delay had not been long enough to make him look like an idiot. 

“Well…” The paper hat goddess said, pointing with her beautiful finger at the incomprehensible menu. “If you want a big meal we have the chicken and waffles?” 

He sat looking at her for a while more. “Chicken and waffles?” He said blankly. 

She nodded, her brown hair did a little bounce. He felt his ears turn red. 

“If you don’t want a big meal-” Her hand drifted to another column of items, “We have the breakfast tenders.” 

“Is there anything here that doesn’t have chicken?” He blinked, wanting to be cautious in regards to his stomach.

“I’m afraid not.” She replied with an apologetic smile. “We are Big Boy’s Fried Chicken and Fixings.” 

“Oh,” He responded, somehow embarrassed that he hadn’t heard of Big Boy’s Fried Chicken and Fixings before- or at least that he hadn’t put the dots together yet. 

“If you really don’t want chicken- I guess you could just order the sides.” She reached over in front of him and flipped the menu over. Promptly, she rattled off every one of the sides. “Anyone of them sound good to you?” 

“Uh,” He paused, caught off guard as, while he had been listening to her talk, he had mostly been listening to her voice and not necessarily the information that came with it. He looked back down at the menu quickly and picked the first thing his eyes landed on- carrots. 

“Carrots?” She said with a tone. 

“Oh, yeah, and I guess some,” He glanced down again, “Some mashed potatoes.” 

“Alright,” She smiled, with a bit of playfulness, or at least he hoped it was playfulness. “Carrots and mashed potatoes for one.” 

He watched her as she went back into the kitchen. Dreadful- wretched- of all the towns to wash ashore in this state he picked here. If he had stopped and slept- back at even the last town- he would have come here right as the bar would have opened. He could have been soaring on some fresh egotistical and boozed up breeze and maybe- just maybe- she would have been at the bar and something lovely could have happened. But now- bedraggled and out in the light of day- he knew he didn’t have any chance at all. Awkwardly, he sat folded in the booth, trying not to think about the misfortune too much. 

The door to the kitchen flipped open, much sooner than anticipated. He sat up straighter. She came, baring carrots and mashed potatoes. This was not exciting, but still, he was excited. She in general just seemed to have that effect, even caring bland food and being dressed in a stripped, orange, diner dress. 

“Does this look up to par?” She said, placing the plate down. “It’s chicken free.”

He glanced at the somewhat watery food. “Looks fine.” 

“Okay,” She said again with a tone. She went back off into the kitchen, leaving him with his plate. 

Slowly, he began to choke down the food. Physics can’t explain why watery food requires copious amount of water to get down- but it does. Was this better than just going hungry- most surely not- but all the of water he was drinking hopefully was having some effect on the fast-approaching hangover that he felt creeping up across the nerves in his forehead. He felt severely tempted to roll into a pit of self-loathing- or loathing in general- he couldn’t decide which. 

Just when he thought he couldn’t take any more of it- both the food and himself- for a third time she came out of the kitchen. This time she was carrying a plate of chicken tenders. He felt a quick pang of sadness- ah yes- there are other customers here too- he thought. But, before he could react, she came right up and placed the plate down in front of him. 

“Sometimes the customer isn’t always right.” She declared. His sad sides paled in comparison to the golden chicken. 

To his startlement, she slid in to sit across from him. “You want to know something. The reason why we serve chicken with every dish is because nothing else here is any good- the chicken kind of covers the sins.” 

He made a small smile. “Dirty trick.” 

“Go ahead, dig in, it’s on the house.” She encouraged. 

He carefully took a piece. She was right. The chicken was good. 

“Thank-you, uh,” He looked around on her apron. “Darleen.” 

“Oh!” She flustered for a bit, “I’m not Darleen. This is just her- mine got coffee all over it and- you know- she was going out and I had just come in.” 

He nodded. All was understood. 

“My name is Rey.” 

“Pretty name- pretty girl.” Good grief, did he say that out loud. 

Rey got a bit pink. “What’s your name. We get some out of town people in here, but not often.”

“Ben.” 

“Where are you headed Ben?” She said, like anywhere was better than here.

“I don’t know-” He replied, “This highway goes to Topeka right.”

“Yes,” She nodded “Eventually.” 

“Well,” He took another bite of chicken “I guess, I’m going to Topeka.” 

Her hazel eyes grew a peculiar spark in them. “You mean you’re just- just riding?” 

He propped himself up a bit, like there was something noble about his escape fueled alcoholic rage trip. “Yes,” 

“Where have you been?” She asked, leaning closer. 

He felt himself leaning closer too. “Most of the midwest. I started in Houston and have sort of been working my way up.” 

“Where’s up?” 

“Canada?” He shrugged.

“Canada.” She repeated. It sounded good when she said it. 

“Say,” He said, mustering up the confidence to say something forward despite having nothing fully formed in his head. “Ah- have you been- well do you go to the bar over there.” He motioned with his head in the general direction of the bar. 

“There isn’t any other bar.” She said, simply.

“Of course.” He muttered. Trying not to fumble this he pushed on. “Are you going there tonight?” 

She nodded. “Yes.” 

It was unclear whether she or not she originally had intentions of going to the bar that night before he had asked her- what remained is that she would be there now- meaning he would most definitely be there. 

“I’m afraid my break is over.” She sighed, pushing herself out of her seat. “I hope you enjoy the rest of your meal.” 

He agreed that he would. Smiling to herself, she went back into the kitchen. The chicken was quickly eaten in her absence- possibly even gobbled- and the bill paid.  
Had he just met someone- he thought- really met someone. If so- there was much to be done. He made a harried visit to the gas-station store, ransacking the minimal toiletry section, before rambling onwards towards the grocers. Several armfuls of various whatever was bought. If it smelled good, tasted good, or in general vibed well, it was purchased. Sacks in hand he roved towards the motel.

“The Knighte’s Inne”

It said in gold and purple electronic letters, as if adding extra e’s made it less of a dump. As somewhat of a miserable hovel as it was, it had a shower, a bed, a tv, and an above ground hot-tub around back surrounded by a chain-link fence- everything essential for the American way of life. He got a room and dumped his stuff out on the bed. It had been a while since he had that much in the way personal possessions. It felt a bit weird for him to look at his rush job of a spending spree. 

He went over to the mirror and took a good look at himself. Who even was that- he thought- as he had on many occasions. He was long, dark, and somewhat out of proportion. A shower would fix a lot of things- but he had always been afflicted with the notion that he had an odd face- and a shower couldn’t fix that. A bit displeased that the human condition required a physical artifact to accompany it, he turned on the sink and tried to become less scruffy looking. It must have meant something too, that he was feeling compelled to do this. He had done things on impulse before- but making camp in the middle of nowhere for who knows how long was definitely a strange experience for an acclimatized drifter as himself. But he was stirred- how was he stirred.

**Author's Note:**

> :) thanks for reading <3 real romance next chapter
> 
> Also, Kansas is basically Jakku but grass- don't @ me I have driven through it lmao


End file.
